A new computational study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences reveals how hydrocarbons may be formed from methane in deep Earth at extreme pressures and temperatures.

The thermodynamic and kinetic properties of hydrocarbons at high pressures and temperatures are important for understanding carbon reservoirs and fluxes in Earth.

The work provides a basis for understanding experiments that demonstrated polymerization of methane to form high hydrocarbons and earlier methane forming reactions under pressure.

Hydrocarbons (molecules composed of the elements hydrogen and carbon) are the main building block of crude oil and natural gas. Hydrocarbons contribute to the global carbon cycle (one of the most important cycles of the Earth that allows for carbon to be recycled and reused throughout the biosphere and all of its organisms).

The Study: http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2011/04/04/1014804108.full.pdf+html?sid=98416857-96a4-4487-847a-4617eca0a016

Determining the thermochemical properties of hydrocarbons (HCs) at high pressure and temperature is a key step toward understanding carbon reservoirs and fluxes in the deep Earth. The stability of carbon-hydrogen systems at depths greater than a few thousand meters is poorly understood and the extent of abiogenic HCs in the Earth mantle remains controversial. We report ab initio molecular dynamics simulations and free energy calculations aimed at investigating the formation of higher HCs from dissociation of pure methane, and in the presence of carbon surfaces and transition metals, for pressures of 2 to 30 GPa and temperatures of 800 to 4,000 K. We show that for T ≥ 2,000 K and P ≥ 4 GPa HCs higher than methane are energetically favored. Our results indicate that higher HCs become more stable between 1,000 and 2,000 K and P ≥ 4 GPa. The interaction of methane with a transition metal facilitates the formation of these HCs in a range of temperature where otherwise pure methane would be metastable. Our results provide a unified interpretation of several recent experiments and a detailed microscopic model of methane dissociation and polymerization at high pressure and temperature.

Refreshing that we are finally applying some of these science resources to understanding the source of energy of modern industry.

Mass balances have hinted at this for a long time. In short, either there was A LOT more plant life that got wiped out in a cataclysmic event, or something else is going on.

We know you can make oil from dead plants, and that you can make hydrocarbons from methane. We are even fairly sure that a lot of the oils came from (in part) dead things. But it hints at a lot of it came from somewhere else. The Russians have suspected so for a long time.

I've always wondered aobut oil being a "fossil" fuel as defined by being the residue of earlier biological activity. There isn't any doubt about coal, but hydrocarbons were part of the solar nebula and doubtless condensed into the planets in varying degrees. Oil may be the result of geological activity on primal hydrocarbons that condensed when the planet did.

I believe some geologist sold one of the scandanavian countries on the theory that there were a lot of deep hydrocarbons, and they ran a really deep well. Found some methane, but not enough to make it worth drilling the hole.

10
posted on 05/11/2011 11:18:00 AM PDT
by from occupied ga
(Your most dangerous enemy is your own government,)

For a long time I have had the opinion that petroleum was not a 'fossil' fuel. Look at the world oil consumption and try to figure out how many dinosaurs would have to die to supply that much oil.

At one time, I had taken the amount of oil rendered from the largest baleen whale on record and had come up with a 'baleen equivalent' number for the world oil consumption. Seem like it was in the neighborhood of 275,000 large baleen whales would have to die every day to supply the worlds oil consumption.

Geologists and geochemists believe that nearly all (more than 99 percent) of the hydrocarbons in commercially produced crude oil and natural gas are formed by the decomposition of the remains of living organisms, which were buried under layers of sediments in the Earth's crust, a region approximately 5-10 miles below the Earth's surface.

It is a fossil fuel in that it is formed under the right pressure and temperature from primarily dead algae preserved in the bowels of the oceans. Most plant and animal life that die in the ocean are consumed by bottom feeders but under anoxic (no oxygen) conditions, it is accumulated, buried, and thermally cracked with the earth being the refinery. Voila, oil and gas. It takes a long time for significant amounts to form but it subsequently needs to be concentrated in a trap to be of commercial use to us. There are droplets of oil all beneath the surface just as there are a few grains of gold in your backyard. The oil eventually makes it to the surface if it is not trapped.

About 10 years ago I started doing research and found people analyzing old tapped-out wells to surprisingly find more oil. My “smart” liberal friends told me I was an idiot when I told them. Then I started reading how the latest theory was that dead plankton/algae were supplying all that oil. Do you have any calculations regarding plankton and algae or how much would have to produce all the oil?

20
posted on 05/11/2011 11:39:35 AM PDT
by treetopsandroofs
(Had FDR been GOP, there would have been no World Wars, just "The Great War" and "Roosevelt's Wars".)

I've always wondered aobut oil being a "fossil" fuel as defined by being the residue of earlier biological activity.

Petroleum rotates light to the left, supposedly indicative of biogenic origin. However, the degree to which it rotates the light is much less than it should be and is indicative of contamination by biological agents, such as bacteria that can live at extreme heat and pressure. There are many other problems with petroleum being of biogenic origin. It contains many elements and compounds that it should not if biogenic. It does not contain other elements and compounds that it should if biogenic.

Here's the problem with what you are saying......As long as an evolutionist has the ability to keep moving the age bar of the earth, all they have to do is make the age of the Earth older and older. They can keep moving the bar to make billions of more years available to have plankton and plants die and pile up to make oil. If you go mow your grass or just cut a tree down, how long does it take to get covered with miles of dirt? Oil is being found in such numbers now that the numbers just don't add up. Oil can be just another resource just like many other non element products. Obviously, gold, iron, copper are elements and can't be created, but combine some elements a certain way and maybe we get more oil.

I have felt that maybe the whole "fossil fuel" theory was wrong since the '70's. If an armadillo dies in the highway, how long does it take to become oil? It never will because in a month it's gone. What type of event would cover the bottom of the ocean with miles deep of dead plankton? If there were such an event, what would cover them up with miles of sediment before they were dispersed in the ocean's food chain?

This cannot even be discussed because you may have to consider a young earth and worldwide flood possibility. Kick it to the curb and start another line of thinking. These are the types of "anomalies" That ID's want to discuss, but aren't able to without being called heretics. If oil is indeed a "fossil fuel", then the worldwide flood scenario is almost a slam dunk. If that is possible, then a young earth is possible. If it was formed this way, then IMHO, peak oil would be a reality and we would be running out already. We are finding more oil every day and more oil in depleted wells. Go figure.

If science is truly unbiased, all theories should see the light of day, including ID. If we can manufacture oil, we will never figure out how to do it if we are stuck on billions and billions of years and dead plankton. Remember, diamonds are carbon that is heated under pressure for millions of years. Today, they are made in milliseconds in labs. Iron hammers have been found in coal seams miles down and supposedly millions of years old.

If oil is truly dead plants, then we should be able to manufacture it with crop residue and grass clippings in a controlled setting. We already can manufacture liquid fuels from nat gas, methane, or coal. Hitler did, why can't we?

If you guys think this wacko stuff is true, then get out your checkbooks and buy the lease property in Oklahoma that has been pumped out and has all the full drilling permits in place and see if it all filled up again.

Or go drill in Japan. They’ll permit you in a second if you ante up money.

None of you will, of course. Until you put your money where your mouth is, you don’t really believe in infinite oil.

I still don’t understand why there is so much lava. This dirt thermos we call earth must have some tremendous insulation qualities to keep that rock liquid for billions of years. My coffee cools off in the thermos in a few hours.

28
posted on 05/11/2011 12:45:40 PM PDT
by blueunicorn6
("A crack shot and a good dancer")

If oil is truly dead plants, then we should be able to manufacture it with crop residue and grass clippings in a controlled setting.

I imagine you could, but it wouldn't be economic. I used to head some research by petroleum geochemists who would take rock samples containing algae remnants, cook them at elevated temperatures, and oil would form. The raised temperature caused the chemical reactions that form oil from marine algae or land plant remnants to occur in a reasonable time rather than in geologic time. The key to those experiments is the Arrhenius equation: Arrhenius

Those sorts of tests are run to see whether a given rock formation, usually a shale bed, has the potential to form enough oil to be commercially viable. The oil that forms in such a shale bed would, if present in high enough concentrations, migrate from the shale into more permeable sandstone layers and accumulate in geologic traps below or against impermeable layers.

Certain types of kerogen (organic matter in rocks) are more prone to form oil than others. See: Kerogen There are vast amounts of kerogen. Kerogen is the largest or most abundant form of organic carbon on earth.

Oil contains a lot of molecular indications of its biogenic origin. There are molecular remnants of chlorophyll, cell walls, remnants from flowering plants, etc., contained in the oil.

I’ve always wondered how it’s possible for oil to be the residue of dinosaurs if it’s a few miles under the earth’s surface. If life on earth dates back only a billion or so years, that’s not enough time to have enough sedimentary rock laid down on top of the dead organic matter to pile up several miles deep. And all oil would need to be found in sedimentary rock for that to be true.

And every time we found a deposit of fossils there should be a layer of oil.

I think coal is mainly the remains of dead organic matter, but not oil.

There is several reasons we have lava. The pressures remain great deep in the earth. Go to the pressure/temp scales in the refrigeration industry for more info on the relationship of temp to pressure. The other is movement. The earths core is still molten and moving. Movement causes heat. As the crust moves as it just did in Japan, we will have more heat buildup. not less. If the earths core ever turns solid, we will freeze very quickly.

If you drill down a few hundred feet, you most likely could run a water cooled coil down there to cool your home geothermically. Just as a root cellar stays cool you could extract the cooler temps and bring them in your house. Same thing with a deep pond on your property with a coil at the bottom of the pond.

Now drill down deeper and you will at some point start to get hotter as the geothermic heat will become more evident. Remember the Peruvian copper miners trapped underground a mile. They were hot even in winter.

What matters is the rate of renewal versus the rate of consumption. If the rate of renewal is much less than the rate of consumption, then we will very soon need to cut back sharply on our usage.

We can be very sure that the rate of production over the last few hundred million years is much less than the rate of consumption over the last 100 years -- otherwise we would have had oceans of oil to deal with.

36
posted on 05/11/2011 1:43:07 PM PDT
by PapaBear3625
("It is only when we've lost everything, that we are free to do anything" -- Fight Club)

Oil is being found in such numbers now that the numbers just don't add up

Let's clarify that a trifle. That 'found' oil is oil which is economical to extract. It has been where it is, we just lacked the technology to get it out of the ground and make money doing it. Even the USGS Bakken reserve estimates have been (significantly) revised upwards a couple of times, not because there is more oil there than there was 20 or 50 years ago, but because we can extract it, and in the process are learning how much was present in the first place.

Most "dry holes" have some oil or gas present, just not enough to pay for drilling and operating costs using the available technology. In light of technological changes and price increases, oil which was formerly not economical to produce has become so, especially if the wellbore already exists.

45
posted on 05/11/2011 3:54:48 PM PDT
by Smokin' Joe
(How often God must weep at humans' folly. Stand fast. God knows what He is doing.)

Ive always wondered how its possible for oil to be the residue of dinosaurs if its a few miles under the earths surface.

The oil-dinosaur connection is either being used jokingly or as a strawman, no scientist actually believes that. Most oil is ancient zooplankton and algae - which is one of the reasons algae fuel is surprisingly similar to petroleum (which has any number of chemical compounds in it and not just long chains of hydrocarbons).

If life on earth dates back only a billion or so years, thats not enough time to have enough sedimentary rock laid down on top of the dead organic matter to pile up several miles deep.

Any number of factors plays a role where the oil actually ends up, from plate tectonics to the type of rock. Still, on the grand scale the location of large oil fields correlates well with the location of ancient oceans.

I think coal is mainly the remains of dead organic matter, but not oil.

The formation of coal can almost be watched: moors turn into peat and peat slowly turns into lignite, then hard coal.

I recall it was some Norwegian fellow who predicted a find of abiogenic oil in a place where traditional oil scientists said it would not be...and there it was. It’s not proof that oil is abiogenic, but it does indicate that oil can be found in more places than just where traditional experience expects it. Meaning we may have a lot more oil than was ever imagined.

48
posted on 05/11/2011 4:20:53 PM PDT
by MeganC
(NO WAR FOR OIL! ........except when a Democrat's in charge.)

If that is true, then the entire concept of peak oil is officially DEAD.

Indeed, thanks to gas injection (steam or CO2), special liquid detergent injection and the new rock craking methods used in places like the Bakken formation, we're discovering that the amount of recoverable crude oil is VASTLY larger than anyone anticipated. In short, modern oil extraction technology has WAY out-ran the naysayers who said we'll run out of oil soon. And that's not including research into oil-laden algae to make diesel fuel, heating oil, gasoline and kerosene, which could make these motor fuels effectively available forever.

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